The Billionaire's First Christmas - Contemporary Romance (18 page)

“So, did you like it?” she asked
me.

I shrugged, trying to play it cool as
I said, “It was okay.”

She laughed and said, “Okay… yeah
right. You loved it. I see the tears in your eyes.”

“I’m allergic to cats,” I told her.
“That’s allergy you see in my eyes.” She giggled and looked at the
clock.

“I should start dinner.”

“Are we having it for lunch?” I asked
her.

“I thought mid-day would be good. Is
that okay with you?” she asked.

“Perfect,” I told her. “Can I help you
do something?”

“Sure, follow me and I’ll put you to
work,” she told me with a smile.

I did as I was told, and she did as
promised. She laid out the ingredients I would need to make a salad
and handed me a knife. I cut and sliced and chopped as she split
open the lobsters and seasoned them and then seasoned and
tenderized the steaks. I hadn’t ever cooked dinner with a woman. It
was an intimate experience, reaching across each other for things
and sliding past her to get to the sink. I was breathing heavily
and my palms were sweaty fifteen minutes into it.

“Can you hand me that pepper grinder?”
she asked.

I picked it up and held it out to her.
When she took it from me out fingers brushed against each other and
I felt the shock waves all the way into my toes. Our eyes met and
for about a second I considered kissing her again. Instead, I
decided to give her something that I thought she might appreciate
more… I told her about my life and why I hated
Christmas.

ROBYN

I stood there in the kitchen with my
hand on the pepper grinder and our fingers touching… and I didn’t
want to let go. His touch was electric, even fingertips. Finally,
he took a step back. I wasn’t surprised; it was what I was used to.
There was something holding him back, keeping him from taking that
next step. He didn’t take his eyes from my face though as he said,
“I guess, since you’ve shared so much with me that it’s about time
I share something with you.”

I didn’t want to break the spell that
made him suddenly want to talk to me, so I didn’t say anything.
Instead, I just pulled out a chair and quietly took a seat. He took
the other one and said, “I’m sorry that I’ve acted like it was a
big mystery. The truth is that it’s just really hard for me to even
think about, much less talk about.” He looked so distressed and I
could see on his face how hard this was for him. I reached across
the table and covered his hand with mine.

“I would like to know as much about
you as you want to tell me. But if this is too hard, it’s
okay.”

He covered my hand with his other one.
His hands were so warm and my whole body felt tingly
again.

“I want you to know me,” he said. “I
was born to a couple of amazing people. My dad was an iron worker
and my mother was a stay at home mom like yours. Christmas in our
house was the best… well, compared to yours, maybe not the absolute
best, but close,” he said with a grin. “My mother started baking in
November. The house always smelled like apples and cinnamon and
pumpkin pie. Even today when I smell those things, I get a warm
feeling in my chest, like when I walked in here this morning. It
reminded me of home.”

That made me feel better than anything
he’d said so far. “I’m glad,” I said.

“My father worked hard and I learned
later on in my life that although he didn’t make much money, they
had stocked away a good sum to leave for me in case anything
happened to them. I’m always grateful for that, but sometimes I
wonder if planning for the worst encourages the worst to
happen.”

“I had those thoughts myself after my
parents passed away, but honestly I think that I’ve decided to
believe that there is a cosmic plan for us all, no matter how
difficult it is for us to understand.”

He nodded and then said, “When I was
eight years old, my parents went out on December twenty-third to
finish their Christmas shopping. We had a tree filled with gifts
already, so I couldn’t imagine what they had left to buy. I had a
babysitter who sat for me often since I was a baby. She tucked me
in that night and we both talked about how strange it was that my
parents weren’t home yet. They’d been gone a really long time by
then and I’d started to worry. She kissed my forehead and told me
not to worry, they would be home soon. I think I had just started
to drift off when I heard the phone ringing. Then minutes later, I
heard the babysitter, Shirley begin to cry. I knew that something
bad had happened. I’d felt it in my bones before I went to bed. I
stayed in my bed and covered up my head. When Shirley stopped
crying and she came in to tell me I pretended like I was asleep. I
was hoping that she would go away and not say it out loud. If she
said it out loud, that would make it too real.”

I squeezed his hand. I could see the
tears forming in the corners of his eyes. I wanted to tell him to
stop talking because I could tell how much it was hurting him, but
he seemed like he needed to get this out. He’d probably needed to
for a long time. He took a minute to compose himself before going
on.

“They were in an accident and Shirley
told me they didn’t suffer. I was only eight, but I knew she said
that for my benefit as well. The next day I was still refusing to
come out of my room. A police officer came by the house to bring my
parents things by. Shirley was still there with me, she was trying
to reach my aunt and uncle in Newark who were my only living
relatives at that point. The police man came up to see me. When he
walked into my room, he was carrying a bow and arrow set. It was
Christmas Eve and that was what I had asked Santa Claus for. For a
second, my eight year old heart wanted to believe that Santa had
left it. My eight year old brain knew that wasn’t the case before
he told me. He said the bow and arrow were found in their car the
night of the accident. He had no way of knowing that what he was
telling me was taking away my belief in Santa Claus forever, but it
did. I found out later that the car was completely totaled, but the
bow and arrow didn’t have a scratch. They’d rushed out that night
to get me that stupid bow and arrow set and that was why they
died.”

“Oh Aaron! You blamed yourself. You
were just a little boy!”

“I did blame myself for a long time,
but then I took that anger at myself and I turned it on Christmas.
I blamed Christmas for everything that was wrong in my life and my
resentment for it never faded, it grew and made a wall around my
heart. A wall that was un-penetrable, until you came
along.”

“I knew something terrible must have
happened to you in order for you to dislike Christmas so much. Did
your aunt and uncle raise you?”

“No, they weren’t able to take me.
They had four children of their own. I was sent to a foster home
and I bounced from one to the next. No one wanted to adopt an angry
eight year old.”

My heart was literally breaking. It
hurt in my chest. “I’m so sorry, Aaron.”

He smiled at me and said, “You
shouldn’t be. You were the only one who got through to me. Do you
know what the difference is between you and others that have set
out to chip away at that wall?”

“No, what’s that?” I asked.

“You’ve treated me like a human being
since that first day.”

“Other people look at me and see a CEO
or a rich man and they treat me differently than they treat each
other, even Janice who knows me better than anyone. She still calls
me “Mr. Winters.” You look at me the same as you would any other
man.”

“Not exactly,” I told him.

“How’s that?” he said.

“I see someone much more special than
any other man I’ve ever known when I look at you,” I finally told
him. He smiled and just as he seemed to be leaning in to kiss me,
the timer went off for the steaks.

He laughed and said, “I’m going to
hang on to that thought.”

“You better,” I said, as I got up to
get our dinner out of the oven.

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN

~

AARON

I unburdened myself at last. I didn’t
realize how cathartic it was going to be. It felt like a fifty
pound weight had been lifted off my chest finally. I was sorry I’d
carried it around and dwelled on it for so long, but I was glad
that I’d waited until I met Robyn to do it at the same time.
Everything about her radiated warmth and acceptance and made me
feel safe. She wasn’t looking at me like I was an idiot for wasting
the last twenty Christmases being angry and feeling sorry for
myself. She was looking at me with empathy and compassion and it
made me drawn to her that much more.

While she put the steaks and the
lobster on the table, I tossed the salad I made with some vinegar
and oil and put that on the table. She reached into the
refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of wine. Sitting it down on
the table she said, “My best friend gave this to me for Christmas
last year. I was saving it for a special occasion. I think this is
it.” It was a 2011 V. Sattui Gamay Rouge, a very good dry Rose wine
that I’d had before and enjoyed very much.

She sat and then I did too and we
began to eat. The steak was delicious, juicy and flavorful. The
lobster was tender and she’d served it with a seasoned butter sauce
that she made herself.

“This is amazing,” I told
her.

She smiled, “It is really yummy, isn’t
it?”

“Yes, and that salad… I don’t even
have words for how fabulous it is.”

She giggled, “I was just about to say
that it was the best part of the meal.”

When we finished our dinner, I helped
her do the dishes and clean up the kitchen. It was nice and once
again, an intimate experience. It was almost two when we
finished.

“Okay, what’s next in Robyn and
Aaron’s Christmas day of fun?” he asked.

“Is it too soon for dessert?” she
asked me. I couldn’t resist. I made an up and down motion with my
eyebrows and then I looked her over like she was on the menu. She
got it and laughed, saying, “It’s definitely too soon for all that.
I meant cheesecake. I made one yesterday and it’s chilling in the
fridge.”

“Mm, cheesecake sounds great, but I’m
afraid we’ll have to wait just a bit if I don’t want to pop right
out of my jeans.” Her dinner had literally stuffed me.

“Yeah, me too,” she said, patting her
belly. “Then on to the board games.”

“Board games?”

“Yep, board games, snowman,
caroling…”

“Excuse me? Caroling?”

“Yes, of course. You don’t
sing?”

“I never have,” I told her.

“Never? Like never, ever? Not even in
the shower?”

“Well of course I sing in the shower,
doesn’t everyone?”

“You sang at the park that day with me
too…”

“It was lip syncing,” I told
her.

She laughed and said, “Okay, well I
think it’s still snowing out there. You can just pretend it’s the
shower raining down on you.”

“I’m sure it will be exactly the
same,” I said, slightly sarcastically. She laughed at me and went
to set up the board game. I hadn’t played a board game since I was
maybe ten or eleven years old. I wasn’t going to tell her that
though. I was extremely competitive. Admitting fear led to defeat,
so as far as she was concerned I played scrabble and battleship
twice a day. “So which game are we playing?” I asked.

“Monopoly,” she said.

I laughed my evil, take over the world
laugh. She was going to dare play monopoly with a world famous
business mogul?

“Don’t look so confident Mr. Winters
Inc. It’s not as easy as running a business.”

I laughed again, “You
think?”

“Yep, running a business is mostly
skill. Rolling the dice is about getting lucky and I’ve got all the
skills in that department.” She handed me one die and said, “Let’s
roll to see who goes first.” We rolled. She got a six and I got a
two and that was the way the rest of the game went. By the time I
finally gave up and surrendered over an hour later to her mighty
monopoly skills, she owned most of the board and I was broke. It
was a humiliating thing for a business mogul. It was also one more
thing about her that made me feel like a normal person. She wasn’t
afraid to be competitive with me.